Crime affects the quality of life in the society. Today, human trafficking is a major problem worldwide. Statistics show that approximately 600000-800000 individuals are victims of human trafficking worldwide with most of them being children and women ( Logan, Walker & Hunt, 2009). Statistics on human trafficking by Siskin and Wyler (2012) shows that an estimate of 20.9 million individuals is trafficked across the globe with an estimate of 2.5 million people based in America. This implies that human trafficking is a worldwide issue. Human trafficking refers to the illegal transportation of humans from one state to another with the aim of exchanging them, forcing them into commercial sex, and subjecting them to involuntary labor. The human trafficking issue has been there over years and creating awareness would be necessary for mitigating and solving the issue. Each nation is negatively affected by human trafficking regardless of whether it is the nation where the trafficked people originate from or where they are taken to. This presentation focuses on the impacts of human trafficking in the society as a whole.
Human trafficking is one of the most thriving criminal industries today. Victims fall into the traps of traffickers since they are promised a bright future. Most human trafficking victims are vulnerable due to poverty which leads to low living standards, greed whereby some individuals believe that there are greener pastures in foreign countries, lack of quality education, and lack of awareness whereby most people are not aware of the looming dangers connected to human trafficking among others. Some persons are deceived and abducted while others are traded by members of their family ( Shelley, 2010). The human trafficking crime has various effects on the society which include psychological, health, societal and economic effects.
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Research by Logan, Walker, and Hunt (2009) indicate that most human trafficking victims are women and young people with the age ranging from six to twenty-four years. This is because women and young victims are considered to be weak and will easily give in to the force used by traffickers. These victims are compelled to heavy and involuntary labor in dangerous surroundings. Most victims are forcefully engaged in a training using weapons and are made to work as soldiers' in armed warfare. According to Shelley (2010), approximately two million kids are traded for the purpose of forced commercial sex business worldwide. Such children suffer psychological problems such as disorientation, poor self-esteem, depression, emotional problems and are inflicted with fear.
Most victims develop serious psychological disorders that affect them all their lives even after being salvaged. The victims are exposed to having poor mental health in the future due to psychological susceptibility. Since most victims are not able to cope with their situation, they opt for committing suicide to end it all. Children resulting from forced commercial sex are separated from their mothers at birth and this causes more mental pain to women. The human trafficking trauma increases as the enslavement time increases. Having psychologically disturbed people in the society equals to a poor quality of life in the society.
Sexual exploitation is one of the main purposes of human trafficking ( Logan, Walker & Hunt, 2009). Women and children are compelled to engage in prostitution. Victims are forced to deal with close to fifteen clients in one day. This exposes them to psychological problems. Moreover, these victims are not provided with protection and this makes them vulnerable to contracting HIV/AIDS and other STIs which they spread to other people in the society. Lack of sexual protection also causes unwanted pregnancies and the victims are forced to carry out abortions with unhealthy objects and untrained practitioners.
Some traffickers inject drugs to their victims to make abduction easy. They are also forced to engage in substance abuse in some cases. This makes such people to continuously fight with addiction. Human trafficking victims are given unbalanced food with leads to malnutrition. They are also exposed to poor living standards which cause different types of diseases some of which are suffered in the future. The traffickers do not provide medical help to their victims. Victims that work in chemical industries are regarded as slaves. Most of them suffer occupational diseases and instead of being treated they are replaced by other slaves in case they give in to the diseases.
The human trafficking victims can be employed as shackled labor in their birth nation or taken to another nation upon which their migration documents and passports are withdrawn from them on arrival. This renders them helpless as they cannot legally live in the new country and they cannot go back to their country. It is sad that these victims are mostly convicted as coordinators of crime instead of being regarded as victims. These victims are exposed to unhygienic and poor living standards without medical attention. If they do not conform to their employer’s demands, these victims are more likely to be sexually and physically violated ( Shelley, 2010). This paints a very awful image of the society
Human trafficking leads to violation of human rights and deprivation of education. Even after salvage, most victims are stigmatized and strife to be accepted by the society. Human trafficking collaborates with other criminal activities like ammunition and drug peddling. These criminal activities paint a horrible picture of the society today. Greed for money and corruption gears up the human trafficking industry making it blossom without challenges. This makes it difficult to establish a stable, healthy and hearty society that provides a quality life for its residents.
Illegal profit generated by the human trafficking industry worldwide is approximately $31.6 billion. According to Koettl (2009), a trafficker gains approximately $250,000 for each sex trade victim annually. Out of this amount, the victim gains an insignificant amount or does not gain anything. Slavery victims are paid trivial salaries for hard work. Most employers opt for cheap labor provided by the slaves and this prevents employment opportunities straining the nation economically. The human trafficking industry is strong financially making it flourish without challenges, this causes financial consequences to the country.
Human trafficking leads to illegal immigration which is a major threat to the security of a nation. It leads to afflictions that diminish the rate of economic growth like unemployment, poverty, terrorism, poor living conditions, increase in population, increased rates of crime, and wastage of government resources ( Koettl, 2009). H uman trafficking victims are often defeated by debts burden which compels them into involuntary labor. In the United States, the debt bondage is an offense punishable by law. Debt bondage causes enslavement. Most of the profits obtained from human trafficking are diverted to legal investments such as financing public affairs and establishing businesses. Human trafficking causes an economic imbalance in that an institution that cuts down its costs of labor illegally has a competitive advantage in the market and this causes unnecessary competition to legal institutions. Human trafficking leads to loss of important human resources.
To conclude, human trafficking is a major challenge to the society today. It has negative impacts that affect the quality of life in the communities. Such impacts include psychological, health, societal and economic effects. This issue should be dealt with in order to build a stable and hearty society. Since this criminal industry has been flourishing over the years without fear of legal actions, I recommend a different way of mitigating and preventing it which is creating awareness. The society should be educated on the meaning of human trafficking, its negative impacts, and its causes so that they do not fall a prey to traffickers.
References
Koettl, J. (2009). Human trafficking, modern day slavery, and economic exploitation (p. 7). Social Protection & Labor, the World Bank.
Logan, T. K., Walker, R., & Hunt, G. (2009). Understanding human trafficking in the United States. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse , 10 (1), 3-30.
Shelley, L. (2010). Human trafficking: A global perspective . Cambridge University Press.
Siskin, A., & Wyler, L. S. (2012). Trafficking in persons: US policy and issues for congress . Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service.
